Patrizia Lamanuzzi, 54, died in Bisceglie near Bari on Wednesday after allegedly being thrown from a balcony by her husband, who then took his own life. She is the latest femicide victim in a grim pattern of gender-based violence that continues to claim lives across Italy.
The lifeless bodies of Patrizia Lamanuzzi and her husband Luigi Gentile, 61, were found on Wednesday morning on a slope leading to the garage of their apartment building on Via Vittorio Veneto in Bisceglie. Police said the couple were in the process of separating.
A neighbour alerted the Carabinieri, telling officers she had heard Lamanuzzi scream before seeing her fall. The victims reportedly fell from a height of approximately three metres from the balcony of their home. The Carabinieri are investigating the deaths as a murder-suicide, with investigators working on the hypothesis that Gentile threw his wife from the balcony before jumping himself.
The couple had two adult children, one living in Switzerland and the other in the nearby town of Trani.
Italy’s femicide crisis: the figures
Lamanuzzi’s death adds to a toll that, despite recent legislative action and widespread public awareness campaigns, continues to mount. According to the Non Una di Meno national observatory, at least ten femicides had already been recorded in Italy since the start of 2026. That is alongside at least 37 attempted femicides reported in national and local media. In every case recorded, the killer was known to the victim: husbands/partners, ex-husbands, fathers, sons.
The 2025 figures offered a note of relative improvement. The Interior Ministry reported that 97 women were killed last year, representing an 18% fall compared to 2024, and down from 120 in 2023 and 130 in 2022. Of those 97 victims, 85 were killed by someone in their family or emotional circle.
Research consistently underlines the context in which these killings occur. A nationwide forensic study of femicides in Italy found that cases were most frequently driven by jealousy or rejection, and by separation or divorce. Wednesday’s killing in Bisceglie, occurring during a separation, fits precisely this pattern.
The law and its limits
Last year, Italy’s parliament approved legislation making femicide a specific felony, mandating life imprisonment for those who commit it. This was a landmark step in a country where such killings had long been classified under broader homicide statutes. Earlier legislation, passed in December 2023, had already strengthened protections for women by broadening the definition of unlawful conduct related to domestic violence and increasing penalties for offenders.
Campaigners and researchers have long argued, however, that legal reform alone is insufficient without cultural change and adequate funding for anti-violence centres. A recent study combining machine-learning analysis with policy evaluation found that femicide risk in Italy follows detectable socio-economic and geographic patterns. Furthermore, anti-violence centres — when adequately funded and strategically located — show evidence of reducing sexual violence.
